Part I. Introduction and Context assumed unprecedented proportions in Europe. States were, however, not blind to the stateless and in the context of the LoN the first important steps were taken to address statelessness and stateless refugees but stopped short of addressing root causes or imposing solutions. Importantly, the developments demonstrate a realization of states that “international politics were needed to overcome the issue of not being a national of any nation-state, whereas being a national of a nation-state had had to be defi ned at the nation-state level”.378 2.4. WOR LD WAR II Despite the international cooperation that was achieved in the context of the LoN, international politics were swift ly drawn into conflict again. With increasing aggression from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, dark clouds were rolling into Europe and in 1939, the continent – and the world – was again the stage of a terrible war. World War II was, as its name suggests, a worldwide war, but “the war that began in 1939 had at its heart the same struggle as that of 1914–18, the overcoming of Germany”.379 It should, however, not be regarded as a European war that grew out to be a world war because “it had worldwide aspects and participants from the beginning”.380 After World War II, Europe was not only literally in ruins because of warfare and extensive bombings, but the continent had also witnessed such atrocious events that it would leave a long-lasting imprint. In the wake of World War II, in which the protection of minority rights so horribly failed, the formula of self-determination of nations in combination with the protection of minority rights was abandoned in Europe. Instead, the focus shifted to the protection of human rights. At the international level, this change of direction was underlined by the establishment of the UN, with the aim “to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations and to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character”381, and particularly evidenced by the adoption of the UDHR in 1948. World War II and its aftermath certainly had an impact on statelessness in Europe. In the paragraphs below, the important developments as regards causes and responses to statelessness are discussed. As considered in paragraph 2.3, statelessness already had become a massive issue for states to deal with and was caused by various factors, in particular large-scale denationalization or denial of nationality against a background of displacement and 378 379 380 381 70 Miriam Rürup, ‘Lives in Limbo. Statelessness after Two World Wars’ (2011) 49 Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 113, 123. JM Roberts, A General History of Europe. Europe 1880–1945 (ed Denys Hay, 2nd ed, Longman 1977) 525. Gerhard L Weinberg, World War II. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2014) 2. AJ Grant & Harold Temperley, revised and edited by Lillian M Penson, Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1789–1950) (Longmans, Green and Co Ltd 1961) 583. Intersentia